Tuesday July 30, 2013

Weiner Should Have Let it All Hang Out

The latest sexting allegations against Anthony Weiner hit the day of the Mayoral Candidates Forum, Focusing on HIV/AIDS was held at GMHC. With Weiner falling behind in the polls since then,Visual AIDS program manager Ted Kerr suggests Weiner should have seized the perfect storm of the scandal and the event to talk about his own experiences, create solidarity with people living with HIV, and begin a frank discussion about sex, risk and unjust outcomes.

The Mayoral Candidate Forum Focusing on
HIV/AIDS at GMHC started late because front-runner Anthony Weiner was apologizing
in the next room. More sexting stories had surfaced, a setback for Weiner who
was starting to overcome a related scandal from two years ago in which he
resigned from Congress after it came out he was carrying on sexual online
relationships outside of his marriage.

Earlier in the day fellow Democratic hopefuls
Bill de Blasio and Sal F. Albanese asked Weiner to pull out of the race. He
declined. Candidate John Liu told reporters, "The
issue of Anthony’s relationships, online or otherwise, is between he and his
wife, however the propensity for pornographic selfies is a valid issue for
voters."

While
I am not sure it is a valid issue for voters, I do think that a discussion of
them, started by Weiner, could be the beginning of a liberatory discussion
around sex, drive and desire.Sitting, admiring the Keith Haring installation that bordered the 7th floor GMHC lunchroom where the forum was taking place, I hoped Weiner
would use the occasion to talk about what he was going through. After all, how
could he not? Wasn’t the forum a perfect site? The audience was people living
with HIV, and those impacted by the virus, all of who know what it is to suffer
because of society’s ideas of right and wrong. AIDS, for all the leaps and
bounds made in research and medicine, is still complicated by stigma and
discrimination. While being caught sexting is not the same as living with HIV,
Weiner would be wise to seize the moment, and create community. Keith Haring, even in his final months, used his public persona to create awareness of HIV/AIDS. Certainly the virile Weiner could also do the same.

Weiner was in the perfect
position to illustrate how the public’s focus on sexting, instead of his record
as a City Councilor and a member of the House of Representatives, was just one
example of the stigma attached to sex that makes safer sex education,
prevention campaigns, and getting people on treatment more difficult.

He was well
poised to discuss sexting as a safer sex method, yet not without risks.

He was in a place
where he could easily distance himself from his predecessors, such as Koch and
Giuliani, whose puritan approach to sex not only cost people’s lives (in Koch’s
case), but also gutted in the city (under Giuliani’s rule).

And, he was situated to establish himself as something we know him to be, and someone
relatable – a sexual being.

While talking about
sex could be seen as a political risk, the pay off for ushering in a frank
discussion may be worth it. He was after all the star attraction and sex is
still the leading mode of HIV transmission. In 2010, as the CDC reports, around
30 000 new HIV infections occurred between men who have sex with men, just over
10 000 between heterosexuals, and far less than 10 000 through intravenous drug
use. Since the late 80s there has been a sharp decline in HIV transmission
through drug use due to needle exchange, and a concerted effort to talk about
HIV and drug use. The same cannot be said around sex and HIV.

Watching Weiner, who
I had only known as a tabloid subject, was impressive. With every response he
connected with the audience, and in between questions he joked with his fellow
contenders. Like other candidates, he felt rent caps and HASA had to change and
agreed the ways in which HIV advisory board needed an overhaul; he rejected the
idea that the City should consult the State about property issues that impacted
the poor; and talked briefly about infections rates related to race. With every
response Weiner got up, inching himself in closer to Haring's drawings, establishing himself as a man who stood up for what
he believed in.

At his most
remarkable Weiner brought up undocumented gay people and access to healthcare,
and the challenges facing trans folks navigating New York’s bureaucracy. He did
this with a deft touch, and an implied understanding that immigration reform,
and self-determination (read: justice) are forms of HIV prevention.

He put on a good
show. As The New York Times reported
the next day, Weiner, “spoke passionately about issues like
housing, gay rights and health care, distinguishing himself from his rivals by
rising from his chair and gesticulating forcefully, the audience responded
warmly, with shouts of “Yes, that’s right!” and “You the man!””

But for all the good
he did, he did not deliver. At the
center of a public conversation about desire and his body, speaking about
HIV/AIDS, he did not say the word sex. He could have created solidarity, raising the profile of those who experience stigma because of sex. He did not use his privilege and unique
circumstances to improve the life chances for others. He let down a group of
people that could have been his best allies.

A sex positive mayor
would have gone a long way for the clients of GMHC, VOCAL and Iris House (all
of whom were in attendance) and the people we work with at Visual AIDS – but
they will go on without Weiner. If polls are any indication, Weiner may not
survive the race.

Weiner should have
taken a page out of he personal playbook and exposed himself. He should have
talked about sex. He missed an opportunity to show himself as a real leader,
and someone deeply invested in ending the AIDS crisis. Instead, he stuck to
what was expected of him, thus further enshrining the shame already surrounding
sex, entrenching the notion that sex is only a private affair (even though
through his actions and the ramifications illustrate otherwise), and adding to
the silence around sex we know exasperates the epidemic.

Sadly, he was not
alone. Not once during the forum was sex discussed in a meaningful way, not by
a candidate, or the moderators. The word sex itself was barely uttered. One
exception being when John Liu remarked that his interns had made safer sex
condom packs at GMHC in the past.

30+ years into the
epidemic and the most we can expect from the best and the brightest hoping to
lead a city with a higher HIV rate than the next 3 cities combined is an off
the cuff remark about condoms. Even in
2013, at a mayoral candidate forum on HIV/AIDS, with a leading contender
embroiled in a sexting scandal, we still can't have a public discussion about
sex.

While Weiner may shirked
an opportunity that was his to have, all the candidates failed to address
the AIDS crisis head on by not talking about sex.